


Solitary

by Deannie



Series: Loneliness [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Gen, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1995-10-31
Updated: 1995-10-31
Packaged: 2018-01-01 16:23:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four FBI agents are kidnapped by a drug dealer hellbent on revenge. Can Scully and the others find them before it's too late?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solitary

He shivered. The cold was getting worse again. He supposed it was night--not like it mattered in this darkness. He just liked to pretend that it was important sometimes--like he liked to pretend that he was important.

He wasn't of course. He had done something so awful that he would live forever in this cold dark. It was a fitting punishment.

He could remember, dimly, an FBI agent who asked him so many questions--too many. He had cried. He had asked the man to leave him alone, but still the questions came:

_What did you do with her?_

_Where is she?_

_Where did you take her?_

They were all the same question, of course, but he had had so many different ways of asking it. He curled into a tighter ball, his shoulders rubbing the ceiling, his head tucked under for protection. He hadn't known the answer for a long time, and even when he did know it, he didn't tell them. And maybe  _that_  was why he was being punished.

So he guessed he deserved what he got now--life in the dark, pain, beatings, starvation. If he could starve forever, it still wouldn't be enough...

Because he'd lost her, and his dad was right--he was in charge. It was his fault.

"Sam," he cried pitifully, his voice rough with tears and disuse. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

* * *

He hadn't drunk it.

It took a lot for him to pour it on the ground, hearing it drain away in the dark. He was so thirsty. But it was poison. Simple fact--water was now poison. A lot of things had changed like that in his time in the dark. Light was pain. Cold was nothing now. Thinking used to be useful, now it was just... confusing.

Sometimes he knew what was happening, he knew why he was trapped here in this darkness--sometimes he didn't, but thought he did. Through it all, though, there was one thing he did know--he'd been right. Solitary  _could_  break a man. It could make you forget words, memories. It could make you forget who you were.

He closed his eyes in the dark silence, listening to the breathing for a moment, wondering if it was really his.

"Fox Mulder," he finally said quietly, not recognizing his own voice. "Fox Mulder."

* * *

He was dragged into the light again, rough hands ripping him out of his little box, tearing more skin from his arms. The beatings didn't last long anymore--they didn't have to. They just lasted long enough for the worst part of it all to begin...

Even the sound of the water could frighten him now. Sometimes his torturer would put that tin cup to his mouth, trying to force the poison down his throat. More often, however, it was a rusty-tasting hose shoved into his mouth, the hot, rancid liquid forced into him so quickly that he had no choice but to swallow.

This water, he understood dimly, wasn't poison--not like the tin cup--but it kept him alive, kept him almost coherent.

And all that did was to let his torturer take his time about killing him...

* * *

He had hoped, this last time, that  _he_  would beat him hard enough to kill him. He didn't hope for much anymore--numbness, sleep... not much else. He could remember hoping someone would find him. He couldn't remember who that would have been. Certainly, Mom and Dad were glad to see him gone. It  _was_  his fault, after all.

Still that hope had lingered for a long, long time...

 

He wished  _he_  would at least grunt when he hit him. It was like being attacked by nothing--a nothing with a brick for a fist. He just wanted to hear a voice again. Any voice.

His didn't even work anymore.

* * *

It had been a long time. No beatings. No water. No food. He hoped this would be the end. He hoped he'd just fade away here in a box for what he'd done. How could he pay them back for her, except with his own life. It was a fair trade.

Actually, he felt a little guilty--he wanted to die, so it wasn't as if he was doing it for them. It was just all too hard for him now. He still saw snatches of that person. There was something about... her? He shook his head weakly. Something blue, a smoky sound, a bright smile.

He cried. He just didn't know any more. What was she?  _Where_  was she?

Wait, that was right. She was gone. It was his fault, right? That was why he was here.

Right?

He finally felt the numbness he'd so hoped for, creeping over him.

* * *

He could hear something--like a cry. Then, slowly, he saw the ceiling coming off. The light was bright, painful. They were coming for him. They had changed their minds, wanting him instead of her. He had to get to the gun. He couldn't move, but he just had to. Dad was going to kill him. He was  _in charge!_  It was his job to look after her, and he was just letting her go. He wanted the gun. God, he wanted it so bad.

They were coming for him, and he couldn't get the gun, and he couldn't move, and it was all his fault, and Dad was going to kill him!

* * *

_Day 40_

Christmas had come and gone... New Year's... It would be her birthday soon. No cheeky present, no shy invitation to dinner, no settling for pizza and a video at her house...

No Mulder.

Scully sipped quietly at her coffee. "Damn it, Mulder," she asked in a whisper, "where are you?"

She picked up the file that had been lying on her kitchen table for weeks now. She hadn't looked at it in days--her subconscious's way of telling her he was really gone, she supposed. She knew it wasn't true. It couldn't be. She'd thought he was dead before, but...

But he had come to her in a dream and told her that he was coming back.

And this time there had been no dream, no clues...

She wondered about the families of the other missing agents--she was pretty much the only family Mulder had, excepting his mother, who, these days, could hardly be considered family at all. But Jerry Prevan's third daughter had celebrated her fifteenth birthday without her dad. John Carter's fiancée had watched their wedding date slip past. Carl Mossey's wife had birthed their first child, and he hadn't been there to hold her.

Their partners suffered, too. Deric Aldred seemed forever to be looking for Jerry--to share a joke, or make a snide observation. Latham and Callahan were no better, walking around like they'd lost half of themselves.

And Scully? Well, Scully went about her business; performed the odd autopsy, taught the occasional class... and tried to stay as far away from every one else as possible.

 

Brian had lost it with her a week ago, as she had with him. His placid acceptance of the situation annoyed her--it wasn't fair to Carl, or Mulder. They weren't just simple kidnap victims. These were FBI agents who had been kidnapped--they were out there somewhere. And they were  _not_  dead.

 

"Dana," he'd said quietly, his deep eyes speaking volumes of pain and regret. "We have to face facts. They've been missing for a month. There's so little probability of finding them alive now--"

"That we might as well give up and forget them?" she'd asked coldly. "I don't think Carl's going to appreciate that... Neither will his wife."

"I don't think Mulder would have wanted you to--"

"Mulder is alive!" she'd nearly screamed. "He's alive, and he's waiting for us to find him--not bury his memory!"

Brian hung his head angrily. "You're just like him."

She'd wrapped her arms across her chest childishly. "Good!"

Brian ignored the outburst. "When you were gone... When your mom called him to get the grave marker... He was so mad. He was sure you were alive--that you'd come back."

She was shaking now. "And I did," she replied, a hint of purpose in her steel blue eyes. "I did... So will he."

 

Brian had left her alone after that, which was just as well. She had a lot to think about: the letters from Conche, his prison journals, the pysch profile Mulder had put together on him some six months previous, not long after he'd returned to work after New Mexico.

She flipped through the photos--nothing special about them: empty cars, graced only by the owner's gun and badge; a shot of Mulder's watch, recovered by the side of the road; Jerry's overcoat found in Virginia. She got to the letters, picked up the first one, forcing her eyes to run through it, though she knew it by heart now:

 

Dear FBI,  
I told your agents I'd pay them back for my life. I'm only taking what they took. If you find them, they'll be what I became during those six months in jail: hard, cold, and scared. One day, people will understand that the legal system is more brutal than the 'criminals' they incarcerate. For one mistake, I was thrown into a dark pit, like a forgotten carcass--tenderized, and served up as an example of how a prisoner of my 'ferocity' should be treated.  
Well, for their mistakes, these agents will pay with their lives, but first, they'll pay with their hearts and their souls and their minds.

He'd actually signed it, confident that they would never find him. And, in truth, they hadn't. They had had virtually no leads to speak of--and getting pulled off the case hadn't helped them in the investigation.

* * *

Skinner had been cool, but she could see by the tightness in his jaw, the anger lurking in his eyes, that he was no happier than she. He'd fairly barked the words out.

"They want you off the case."

She had jumped to her feet as if spring-loaded. "Sir, I--"

"All of you, Scully," he'd said quietly, standing himself. "Callahan, Aldred, all of you. The investigation will continue but..." He met her eyes. "It's been decided that the four of you are too close to it."

She fumed for a moment, unable to say what she really wanted.  _If you think I'm just going to give him up for dead, you can go to Hell, you son of a bitch!_

"Scully," he'd whispered, "They'll find them. But you can't just waste your time running around in circles." He straightened up, taking a deep breath into his barrel chest. "I'm asking you to cooperate."

She just looked at him for a minute. She could see he'd been expecting resistance, could see his own resistance to the orders from above written in his angry eyes. Scully pulled her spine out straight, meeting his gaze with something akin to defiance. "May I ask," she said formally, "what my duties will be now, sir? The X-Files aren't really cases that should be handled by one agent."

Skinner relaxed--just slightly, but enough that Scully noticed.

"I'm not going to reassign you just yet," he said gently. "You'll be doing consulting for Quantico and VCS. I hope you'll take this opportunity to take some time for yourself, Scully." His voice was that of a gruff superior, but his eyes held a defiance in common with her own. "Process what's happened."

She wondered who was listening, suddenly. It was apparent that Skinner was following orders he'd only recently received--and it was equally apparent that he only meant to follow them in word. Regardless of his orders, he was giving her the room to keep searching.

She glanced quickly at the door to the right of his desk, straightening further at his almost imperceptible nod. "Yessir," she answered quietly. "I'll try to."

"Thank you, Agent Scully. You can go."

* * *

She'd spent some time that day, thinking about the conversation.

It wasn't necessarily unusual for an agent to be taken off a case that involved the disappearance of her partner. Skinner had probably just decided to cut down the amount of work she'd be asked to do, so that she could satisfy herself with a little off-duty investigation.

A lot of good it had done her. She still received updates on the case, copies of any letter Conche might see fit to send them in his pursuit of this twisted game. But there were still so few clues... So little to go on...

She sighed, looking at the letters before her, picking one at random:

 

Dear FBI,  
Your agents aren't nearly as resilient as you wish they were. It took weeks to break me, but they're already bleating like veal--

She resisted the urge to crumple up the paper.  _Asshole!_  She couldn't imagine what they'd be put through by a psycho like Conche. He'd already shown he could kill--usually brutally. That was what had started the investigation on him all those months ago.

Not that Mulder had had all that large a hand in it. That was what made her hurt so much: He'd done a simple pysch profile--two scant hours of his time. And for that, he would be put through Hell.

* * *

_6:45 pm_ _  
__July 30, 1995_

_ring_  "Scully."

"Hey, Scully. What ya doing?" He had sounded so tired. He still seemed so tired, after all the time that had passed since New Mexico--so tired.

"Just finishing a little paperwork, Mulder." She had heard the entreaty in his voice, smiled at it. He knew so well how to manipulate her. "Want to come over for dinner?"

She could hear the relief. "Sure. Want me to bring anything?"

She'd shrugged in her empty apartment. "Just yourself."

_7:45 pm_

"So," he was finishing, biting into his pizza. "It looks like this guy was a drug dealer at one time... Either that, or he knows how they think."

"How does he kill his victims?"

Mulder grimaced. "I'm trying to eat here, Scully."

She smiled at his squeamishness. "Sorry. Pretty gruesome, huh?"

He shuddered. "You have no idea."

* * *

She did now.

In researching Conche's history, she had naturally gone back to the incidents that had led up to his capture and incarceration. His fifteen victims had all been drug dealers, and all had died in what Conche must have thought was a fitting way, depending on what they sold. The five crack dealers had been cooked alive, the straight coke dealers had bled to death after he removed their noses and shot them through the lungs. She didn't like remembering how the heroine dealers had died.

She stood up, taking the file with her, moving silently into the living room and curling herself up on the couch.

She didn't even bother being tired anymore. She'd never have thought she could go so long without sleep, but it just wasn't important. What was important was the one little key that would unlock the secret of the missing agents' whereabouts. The fact that she might have had better luck getting her neurons to fire after a few hours sleep hadn't even occurred to her.

She should have seen the signs coming. It had just seemed so unimportant at the time.

* * *

"Hey, Spook!" Brian Callahan's bass voice had exploded across the cafeteria at them. With a shared smirk, Mulder and Scully had joined him, Mulder regarding the startled agents around him with something like amusement.

"Sure you want to sit with the bureau pariah, Bri?" Mulder had asked, a friendly grin on his face.

Brian looked past Mulder to a woman who was just gathering her things to return to work. Her glare froze him solid--Bri did so like to be liked. "I'm already a bureau pariah, Mulder."

Mulder glanced over his shoulder, catching the irate young woman in deep conversation with two girls from accounting. The glances they threw at the huge blond agent could have killed. "I forgot," he said amiably. "One girl too many, huh?"

Brian gazed at Scully wistfully for a moment. "I should have stayed with you when I had the chance."

Scully's smile told him that it was probably too late--but she wouldn't mind letting him try for a comeback. Mulder cleared his throat, and the mood.

Brian dropped his eyes back to his salad with a melancholy grin. "You hear they overturned Conche's conviction?"

"Brilliant," Mulder said, a disgusted look crossing his face.

"How could they," Scully had wanted to know. "There was enough evidence to send him to death row. As it was, life imprisonment was letting him off easy."

"Well," Brian said quietly. "If you don't dot your i's and cross your t's, someone's bound to get off."

"So how do they explain the fact that he was thrown in solitary four times in the six months he was in?" Mulder wanted to know.

"Frustration at being wrongly convicted, if you can believe it."

"The Criminal Justice system at its finest," Mulder decreed cynically.

 

And that had been it. None of them had thought another thing about it--until Friday morning.

* * *

_7:30 am_

Scully frowned slightly as she pulled into the parking garage.  _Does he_ live _here?_

Mulder's car was already in its customary parking space, too much elbow room around it, barely competing with the five or six other cars parked around. She pulled her car up next to it, a little angry. Sometimes, his obsession with work made her feel like she wasn't giving enough to the job.  _Right, Dana. Like you're not on call twenty-four hours a day._

She had only glanced at the sedan, but something metallic on the driver's seat had caught her eye. She leaned in closer, and caught her breath.

On the seat sat his Sig and badge, and, with them, a small card which said simply: Four. She tried the door, more worried when it opened easily. She didn't touch anything, but died a little when she saw a smear of what had to be blood on the headrest.

* * *

And he was gone. As were the three other agents who had testified against Conche at his trial. It didn't take a genius to run the fingerprints from the card against Conche's, nor above average intelligence to know they would be his before the computer even flashed his blunt, pasty face on the screen.

The manhunt had been amazingly comprehensive--even by FBI standards. With four of its own missing, the Bureau had a vested interest in finding them.

But it was hopeless. Somehow, Conche had managed to cover his tracks. Still, she mused, drifting off slightly despite herself, Mulder's original psych evaluation had said that Conche liked to play games. He had left solid evidence against himself on the cards in the agents' cars.

Her exhausted brain rolled all the clues she had over and over...

He had been in solitary...

_Your agents aren't nearly as resilient as you wish they were... they're already bleating like veal--_

_I was thrown into a dark pit, like a forgotten carcass_

Scully's head snapped up, and she all but broke her leg lunging for the file.

"Where is it... Come on, come on...  _There!_ " She hooked her hair behind an ear. "All right, work history... There it is--Virginia Meat Packing Company..."

She grabbed the phone, dialing absently as she scanned farther down his file.

"Information Retrieval."

"Is Danny around?"

"Sure," the young man on the other end replied. "Can I tell him who's calling?"

"Agent Scully."

It took Danny a second to get to the phone. "Yeah, Scully?" He sounded tired. "What are you doing calling at this hour?"

She glanced at the clock, surprised to find that it was already nearly midnight. That brought up the question of what Danny was doing at the office so late, but she thrust the thought aside.

"Looking for information on meat packing companies."

"Going into business as a butcher?"

 _Maybe,_  she thought vengefully. "I need to find out what plant Conche was at when he worked for the Virginia Meat Packing Company."

Danny was intrigued. "This about Mulder?"

Scully almost smiled. "It had better be."

"Give me a second to get to my machine." Danny's machine was a wonder. Mostly composed of rejects from other parts of the Bureau, that computer was capable of giving him virtually any information he wanted, almost at the touch of a button.

"Um...." Danny stalled, as Scully heard the keyboard clicking in the background. "Looks like the Matren Falls plant--it's closed down now, but--"

"That's perfect, Danny, thanks."

* * *

_Matren Falls, VA_ _  
__Day 41_

"So what makes you think they're here, Dana?" Brian had asked, refusing to let himself get excited.

Scully pulled out her gun as they approached the old processing plant. She knew she should have called Skinner--should have gotten backup--but she and the others had silently agreed that this was more or less  _their_  fight. They weren't going to stand back and wait for someone else to find their partners.

"Conche likes to play games, right?" she asked tightly as Aldred jimmied the door. "He left us clues." Her voice held irritation now, at her self, her obtuseness. "We just weren't quick enough to pick up on it."  
She'd explain later, her eyes said, as the small group slid into the huge warehouse.

 

Somehow, it still managed to smell carnal, though it had been two years since the place had been closed down. Scully tried to listen to everything at once as they spread out, searching the darkness. Her head hurt after a while, listening for something--anything--that would tell her her partner was here. The silence was oppressive.

"Dana!" Brian's whisper all but scared her upstairs. She turned silently, tracking toward him.

"I found the basement stairs," he said quietly, explaining to her puzzled eyes, "There are probably freezers down there--walk-ins. If you're right about Conche wanting to put them through what he went through in solitary, they'd be the perfect place."

Deric Aldred had come up behind them, and his face paled markedly. "He put them in freezers?" he asked, his voice little more than a squeak.

Scully put a steady hand on his shaking shoulder. "The power's off, Deric," she hissed, praying he wouldn't lose it, as he seemed likely to. "They're just lockers without the compressors."

He nodded nervously, but seemed reluctant to follow them down. Perry Latham came up behind him, giving Deric's other a shoulder a squeeze, and leading him toward the stairs.

Scully whirled suddenly as the outer door to the plant yawned quietly open. All four agents, already on edge, raised their guns, ready to fire.

"Don't!" Scully called suddenly, dropping her own gun arm. "It's Barrons."

The young agent looked like a high school student dressed up for Halloween, but the six agents behind him gave the illusion no credence.

"What are you doing here, Jamie?" Scully asked angrily.

"Skinner told me to keep an eye on you guys," he said, not a touch of guilt at his spying reaching his voice. "He figured if anyone was going to find the right lead, it'd be you." He smiled cheekily at her. "'Course, I never figured you'd pick a charnel house for the rescue."

Scully would take umbrage at the cocky child's levity later. Right now, she just wanted to get into that basement and, hopefully, if there was the God she'd been lead to believe in all these years, find her partner. "We've got a paramedic team outside, just in case," Barrons informed them, a little darkness marring his grey eyes, as he immediately sobered. "Any sign of Conche?"

Scully shook her head as she reached the bottom of the stairs, and stopped dead. She couldn't help the little voice inside that told her she would get there too late. It was even louder than the one that told her he had never been here at all. "Please, God," she whispered, silencing both of them. "Please let them be here."

The first few meat lockers were empty. They were also roasting, contrary to their design. Scully's mind skittered away from the image of Mulder sweating away in one of those things. She willed her hands not to shake as she pulled open another door.

"Perry!" Her whispered cry brought the man to her side instantly.

He swayed lightly on his feet, staring down at the motionless heap in the cell. It took him a moment to bend down and feel for a pulse. When he did, the ragged man grabbed his hand with all the ferocity of a tiger.

"Johnny!" Latham cried out, startled, scared, and joyous all at once. "John, it's Perry."

Carter sounded as if he hadn't said a word in years--as if he'd forgotten how. "Perry? That you?"

Latham didn't notice his own tears. "Yeah, it's me, John."

Carter seemed to take a minute to gather his strength, and when he spoke again, it was with more control. "Dannette? She okay?"

Latham smiled, laughed a little high. "She's gonna kill you, buddy. You missed the wedding and everything."

Tears threatening, Scully turned away, heading for another door, when she was intercepted by Barrons. "Scully, you need to see this."

"Mulder?" her voice sounded pitifully eager to her own ears.

Barrons shook his head. "No." He put a hand on her arm, wondering whether she'd cry. "Just come with me."

Scully would have resisted, but his grip on her arm was vise-strong. She got the idea, suddenly, that he was trying to keep something from her. Maybe while she had been with John and Perry, someone had found him. Maybe he was dead. Maybe he wasn't even here and Conche was playing more headgames with them. She tried to pull out of his grasp.

"Damn it, Scully," Barrons hissed. "I found Conche and I want you to take a look at him."

Scully suddenly fell quiet.  _Found_  him? Not  _caught,_  not  _tracked down,_  but  _found._  She followed him to a locker at the far end of the hallway, her shadow bouncing off of myriad surfaces as the men around her flashed their halogen torches, searching.

 

Conche was lying in the center of the locker, his face a devastating white. "What happened?" Scully asked as part of her wished he was alive, so she could kill him herself.

"I was hoping you could tell me. He looks like--"

Barrons was cut off by a rough shout in the hallway, followed by Brian's voice, close to tears. "Damn it, Carl! Carl! It's me. It's Brian!" There was a thud, a heart-wrenching pause, then: "Damn it." Somehow the whisper was worse than the shouts.

Scully and Barrons rushed out into the corridor, to find Carl sprawled on the ground, Brian hovering over him as if protecting him from the others.

"He just..." Deric gulped. "He just attacked him. Like he didn't know who he was." Aldred looked up, the anguish in his face causing a stray tear to trail from Scully's eye. "Then he just... collapsed."

Brian stood up, a glower on his face. "Where the hell are those paramedics, James?" He gestured angrily to his partner. "I want to get him  _out_  of here!"

Barrons nodded his young head, dashing past quickly and heading for the stairs. Scully went back to searching.

Twenty minutes later, she was in silent tears.

"Where is he, Brian?" she asked quietly, glancing over at Aldred, whose eyes held the same pain. "Where are they?" She suddenly found herself pacing angrily. "Damn it!" She gestured to the farthest cell. " _He's_  dead! How the hell are we going to find them if he's not around to drop us any more  _fucking_  clues?"

Brian walked toward her, but she turned suddenly, heading for that locker with purpose.

"What?" Brian asked, following.

"His final game," Scully said quietly, running her hands over the body, looking for something. She found it, and pulled the letter from the dead man's coat pocket. "One more clue."

She opened the letter, reading aloud as Aldred joined them:

 

Dear FBI,  
There's two of them for you. Hope they didn't give you any trouble--if they're still alive. You'll have to wait for the rest of the cattle. I couldn't keep them all in one place, you know. Far too easy.  
Have fun with your hunt.  
I'm sure you'll find them eventually. If not, I've paid for my crime, as they've paid for theirs. My life was gone the moment I was sentenced. Theirs were gone the moment they each stepped into that witness stall. Such pain from such a little space--no more than five feet square. Less maybe.  
Sorry to deprive their partners of just revenge, but I deserve only what I've given myself.

Scully stood shaking for a moment, until Brian put a warm hand on her shoulder. She turned up to him, her eyes red. "You should check on Carl," she whispered, defeated.

Callahan held out his hand. "Come with me?"

Scully nodded, and he supported her out.

* * *

_Day 48_

Conche had known more about drugs than they'd given him credit for. Mossey and Carter had been given regular doses of a psychotropic she could barely believe had been synthesized. The resulting psychosis was proving extremely difficult for the doctors to deal with, and while the two agents seemed, at least physically, to be reasonably well off, both of them were having a hard time understanding what was going on around them. She was sure she'd never seen anyone cry like Dannette Kittery did as she sat by her fiancé’s bed.

Unless it was Carl's wife.

 

They'd puzzled over that last letter, given it to the code breakers, had it analyzed by the best. They still knew nothing. Virginia Meat Packing had four other plants that had been closed down in the past few years, but all of them had proven to be empty.

Scully lay back on her couch, wondering just where the hell Conche would have put them. Every day they were gone, the probability of them being found alive dipped closer to zero.

She had a hard time believing that Conche had had any sort of accomplice, which meant that Jerry and Mulder had been left--presumably without food, possibly without water--for at least a week now. It took more energy than she had in her to silence the doctor's voice that repeatedly told her how long a human being could go without water.

She sat up quickly as the door shook under a heavy knock, glad to be diverted from her thoughts.

"Dana?"

She went to the door, sliding the chain off and letting Brian in. "What is it?"

"I think I know where Conche took them."

She stared for a moment before it registered. When it did, she gripped his arm fiercely. "Where?"

"I was thinking about that letter Conche left. The way he referred to the witness box? He called it a 'stall'."

"Yes?"

"And he talked about the size of it--five by five?" Brian moved on quickly as Scully's eyes hardened. "Well, if he was fixated enough on this whole 'cattle' thing, then I figured that maybe he was trying to say that they were in veal stalls."

Scully closed her eyes in disgust. "But where, Brian?"

"There's an old factory farm in Virginia, about twenty miles west from where they found Jerry's coat." He ducked his head. "I found what  _might_  be a connection to Conche. The place was raided a year and a half ago. It was being used as a coke factory. Maybe..."

Scully just nodded decisively, grabbing for her coat. "Did you call the local Bureau?"

Brian nodded. "They'll call us en route if they find something."

 

He watched her as he drove, stealing glances. She was just staring off into the gathering darkness, but he could feel her getting more and more agitated. He shouldn't have told her, shouldn't have had her come with him. Conche had been dead more than a week now, and that meant that Mulder and Prevan had basically been left to rot. That Conche would have left them anything to keep them alive was a distressingly remote possibility.

It was one of the reasons he hadn't even thought to call Deric. Aldred was already a basketcase, and if he was there when they found them...

He sighed inwardly. Maybe this had been a mistake. Scully seemed to be strong, capable of handling anything, but... He cursed silently as his cellphone rang, watching Scully as she jumped.

"Callahan," he announced quietly. He could feel her eyes on him as the agent on the other end spoke. "Okay... Okay... Where is that? ...Okay, I've got it. Thanks."

He hung up, and she jumped nervously into the silence. "Well?"

Brian took a deep breath... "He's alive," he told her simply. The rest could wait.

 

The drive had taken too long. Scully's every muscle twitched in annoyance as they entered Maystown, Virginia, heading for the hospital.  _He's alive,_  she kept telling herself.  _Just remember that he's alive._

She launched herself out of the car, leaving Brian rushing after her. The local agent who met her at Mulder's room held up a hand to stop her. "Agent Scully?" he said quietly. "The doctor wants to speak with you before you go in."

She would have ignored him, but Brian laid a large hand on her shoulder, as the doctor rushed up efficiently. "Agent Scully, I'm Dr. Hyman. I'm the consulting physician in your partner's case. There are some things I think you need to know, before--"

"We already know about the drugs, Doctor," she said quietly, straining against Callahan's grip. "We've already retrieved the other agents--"

Hyman shook his head. "Your partner seems to have ingested only small amounts of the drug, compared to the man he was brought in with. He seems to have ingested very little of anything, truth be told." He looked down at the chart in his hands. "He's severely dehydrated and malnourished--it's going to take a while just to get him out of danger. There's a great deal of superficial physical trauma and three broken ribs."

He looked up at her then, and her heart sank. "He's dissociative--totally unaware of what's going on around him." He gestured to the agent next to him. "When they found your partner, he was catatonic, curled into a tight ball, completely unresponsive." His eyes lidded with compassion. "His mental condition hasn't changed."

Scully only heard him dimly. Curled up in a ball, catatonic. Like a twelve-year-old who's lost his sister. She looked up as she realized that the doctor had stopped talking. "Can I go in now?" she asked petulantly. He simply nodded and stepped away from the door.

 

His eyes were open, but they didn't even try to stare at the ceiling above him. His cheeks were sunken, the skin at his neck hanging limply over his bones. What little weight had kept his frame together had long since been shed. Still, she thought she'd never seen anything so beautiful before.

"Mulder?" Her voice was gentle, not a hint of the tears she kept tightly in check. "Mulder, it's Scully."

Not a flicker.

"Mulder," she tried again, taking his hand gently, blocking the thought of how papery his skin seemed, concentrating only on his face. "Mulder, it's okay. I'm here."

Brian turned from her as she sat talking quietly to her partner for ten or fifteen minutes. She didn't seem to care that he didn't answer. At least at first. Toward the end, her voice modulated painfully, the tears coming whether she would have them or no.

"Dana?" Brian put a hand on each of her arms. "Dana, come on. Let's go."

She let herself be lead for a moment. "Where?"

"We'll get a hotel room. Get some sleep. We'll come back first thing in the morning."

She turned angry eyes on him. "You're going to leave him alone!?" Shrugging out of his grasp, she sat back down.

"Dana..."

"He's been alone for weeks, Brian," she explained quietly, tearfully. "I wasn't there."

Brian nodded gently. Had Lynn not been there, he'd never have left Carl's bedside either. "Do you want coffee?"

She shook her head, again taking her partner's hand. She looked up at the blond giant gratefully. "Thank you."

 

_Day 51_

"Mom says hi," Scully said quietly, placing the receiver back in its cradle. "She hopes you get better soon."

Dead eyes sought the ceiling, each second of that gaze killing her a little more.

"Mulder, do you remember my birthday last year?" She smiled tearfully at the memory. "You bought me that little Braves doll--the one with the spring for a neck?" She brought his hand up with her two to rest her head on them. "So what are you going to get me this year?" Scully asked, noticing her tears as they fell onto their entwined hands. Some part of her fantasized that the feel of her tears on his hand would suddenly snap him out of it.

She closed her eyes, just crying. She couldn't do this anymore: couldn't talk to an empty shell. Couldn't make conversation with someone who just wasn't there anymore.

"Mulder," she asked after a time, her eyes still closed against those gravel-dead orbs of his. "Can't you just talk to me? Please?" She opened her eyes. Any view of him was preferable to none.

"Come on, Mulder... Please..." She placed his hand back on the covers, crossing her arms over it and laying her aching head in the cradle they made. For the third time in as many days, she fell asleep with her head resting on his arm.

* * *

There was a voice he recognized. He could figure out the name if he tried, but he couldn't work up to caring. Still, that voice was so sad. It didn't try to be, but it couldn't help itself. He felt vaguely guilty. He also remembered another time he had heard that voice. He was in a hospital, and that voice had been next to him, welcoming him when he woke, providing an anchor.

It couldn't be  _them._  They had other ways of getting to him. They didn't need this kind of lie--not with so many others to choose from.

Did that mean it was safe?

No. His dad was going to kill him. He'd been left in charge and now she was gone and he was going to just hit him and hit him and he had tried to get to the gun--he had tried--but he just wasn't fast enough.

Wasn't fast enough. Now she would die. He would never know why they had taken her, never know what they had done. He'd been so close to the truth once...

 _I'll be happy to save the government the plane fare--I just need to know which government that is._  Then another light had come. Painful light that burned his throat, stopped his breath...

But that voice had come back to him, welcoming him home with its smoky sound. Smoke--but no fire...  _I told her you were going to be all right... How did you know? I just knew._

That voice... Was it saying something now? Was it safe to find out?

* * *

Brian slipped quietly into the room, not wanting to wake her. Mulder's eyes were closed--though these days, that didn't mean anything at all. Open or closed, the store was empty. He gently placed the sandwich and drink on the tray, adding his note, intending to slip out. He needed to get back to DC--needed to see Carl. He'd called Lynn every day, and she said he was getting better, but he needed to see for himself.

He jumped slightly when Scully's eyes flew open. "Brian," she said simply, brushing her hair back off her face.

"I'm going back to DC."

"'Bout time," she joked reservedly. "Carl will get jealous if he knows you're spending this much time with another sick agent."

She rose to let him embrace her. "I'll call you," he said quietly, running a hand down the side of her face with a sad smile. "I really should have kept you while I could--before you gave yourself away to another man." Before she could ask what he had meant by that, he was gone.

"Brian's a little strange, isn't he, Mulder?" she asked, resuming her seat and pulling the tray over to her. She wasn't exactly hungry, but, as Brian had pointed out, if she dropped dead of starvation, how was that going to help Mulder?

"Still, he's cute," she said with a small smile. She knew the prevailing wisdom dictated that she should keep talking to him, letting him know that there was something to come back to, something better than the hell he'd been through. Still she was beginning to think that the past few days, she'd only been talking to herself. "A little tall, though, don't you think?"

Her eyes strayed to his. She couldn't help it. She didn't want to--didn't want to see the not-him there, didn't want to let the hope well up in her again, only to go dry. She let her eyes drift back away.

"I think you're about the right height, though," she observed, not really thinking about what she was saying, just talking. "A little thin, but my lasagna can fatten anyone up... You might even be cuter than he is--in a stranger sort of way." She smiled sadly. " 'Course, you're awfully quiet. I like my men with a little more spunk."

 

_Day 52_

He remembered the name now. He had been trying to recall it for a long time now--however long a long time was. Scully.

Scully, Scully, Scully.

He repeated it silently to himself a few times before trying to remember how to say it. It had been such a long time since he had said anything.

Wait though. He had to say  _something_ \--he couldn't just say 'Scully.' He had to have a follow-up. He remembered being worried long ago, worried that he'd forget something important. That he'd miss something. Something important. Something that made her smile. He remembered that smile.

_I remembered your birthday this year, didn't I, Scully?_

 

His eyes opened slowly, taking a minute for his mind to synchronize to them. The ceiling was desperately boring. He turned a very sore head to one side. This was much better. She sat there, her head cradled on a bed of his arm and hers. She wore a white shirt, her hair, tied back from her face, looked thick and shiny, like he'd remembered it. He wanted to see that face--see if  _it_  was like he remembered.

Something told him there was something wrong with his thought processes, but he didn't want to listen to it. He wanted to listen to  _her._  But he couldn't do that if she was asleep.

_Scully, Scully, Scully, Scully..._

"Sc--"  _Well, that was no good!_

"Scu--"

He was at a loss. He moved his arm, jostling her slightly, and she sat up with a start, taking a moment to focus on him. When she did, she opened her mouth in a big smile. He didn't get to see that often, and he really loved it, but he wanted--

"Mulder?" Her voice was warm and surprised and lovely.

He smiled. That was better.  _Okay, let's try this again._  "Scu--" He frowned suddenly.

"Wait," she said, all but jumping up from her seat. "I'll get some water."

He shook his head. Not the water. Not the tin cup. That was what made him feel strange. It made him forget. He didn't want to forget her again. Never ever.

She tried to give him some water, a little worried when he wouldn't take it. His eyes were vague, and that vagueness started her sweating. She and the doctors had already discussed the possibility that whatever had happened might be too much for him to come back from, but, looking at those vague eyes, she just couldn't let herself believe it.

He was still refusing to drink, and she suddenly remembered that the drugs had been in the water. It hinted at why he was so much more dehydrated than Jerry had been--he'd obviously figured it out, had probably refused to drink it. Which also seemed to explain why, of all of the prisoners, he was the only one to show signs of repeated physical abuse.

She smiled reassuringly. "Mulder, I promise this is not poisoned," she said gently. "Just drink a little bit, okay? Trust me."

Wasn't he supposed to trust no one?

_Deep Throat said trust no one. But that's hard, Scully._

Too hard. He allowed a little of the liquid to drip into his parched mouth.

"Scully." That was much better. Kind of crackly, not very loud. But it worked. It made her smile again. He was doing pretty good here.

"Are you feeling better?" Inane question, but it was something to get him talking.

He nodded, wishing she'd talk more. "What time is it?"

She looked out the window, a fond smile on her face. "Late."

He frowned. That wasn't what he asked, was it? "What time... of year?"

She seemed suddenly guilty, and he had a flash of that same look on his own face. "It's February, Mulder."

He took a moment, not sure why that should have significance for him. Suddenly he knew. "It was December...?"

She smiled again, not quite as convincingly. "It  _was._ " Her hopes dropped slightly. He was responding to her now, but he wasn't connecting. She remembered the discussions she'd had with the doctors, remembered the worst-case scenarios they'd mapped out. This was one--that, if he came out of the catatonic state, his dissociation wouldn't necessarily go away.

"Mulder, you've got to be tired," she said gently, feeling like she was trying to convince her godson to go to sleep. Real rest was what he needed now, she told herself firmly. He'd get better, but he needed to rest. "We can talk later."

He nodded briefly, than looked back up at her. "Talk to me, Scully," he asked quietly, almost child-like in his entreaty.

She sat a moment in silence. "What do you want me to say?"

He shrugged, a little painfully. There was still so much he didn't remember. "What did you do for your birthday last year?" He closed his eyes, wanting just to listen to her. "What did you do for your birthday  _this_  year?"

"I haven't had my birthday this year, Mulder," she answered, taking his hand as she settled back in her chair. He'd be all right. He had to. A little rest, a few days... He wouldn't even miss her birthday. She convinced herself so perfectly that she had no trouble prattling on while he fell asleep.

 

_Day 53_

Mulder woke; stiff, sore, but very clear. Scully sat sleeping in a chair beside him, her head laying gently against the back, her hand wrapped in his. He remembered a few vague moments from the day before, very little for far too long before that. His last memories were of a small, tight box, darkness, and beatings. He shuddered suddenly, worried that he couldn't remember more.

He was so thirsty! He couldn't remember why, but he remembered that he hadn't had water in so long. He tried to reach for the pitcher beside his bed, trying not to shift the hand Scully had in hers. He failed miserably, annoyed at his own clumsiness as she roused quickly.

Her smile was tentative. "Morning."

"Sorry," he rasped quietly. "I guess I'm your clumsy wake-up call."

It was a lame joke, hardly up to his usual standard, but at least it was something of the old Mulder.

"I shouldn't be sleeping in the middle of the day, anyway," she returned lightly.

He reached for the water again, but Scully beat him to it, pouring what he saw as a pitifully small amount into a little plastic cup. Part of him shuddered slightly at the sight, but he shrugged off the confusing reaction quickly, giving his partner a disapproving look.

"Scully. You call that a glass of water?"

She put it in his hand, watching him drink half of it in a swallow. "That's as big a glass of water as you're likely to get for a while." She gazed at him as he drank the rest. "How are you feeling?"

He looked at the glass pointedly. "Thirsty."

She smiled, reaching for it and putting it back on the bedside table. "That's all for now. You've been on IV fluids for four days, and you're still a little dry."

 _Four days?_  What had he been doing, that he was that dehydrated? He took a minute, searching a memory that held more holes than it should have. "What happened?"

Scully watched him carefully. "What do you remember?"

Again, he searched, coming up with a vague memory. Going out to his car after work... A rough voice... an even rougher blow. "Conche?" he asked finally.

She sighed. In many ways, she was thrilled that he couldn't remember. He'd obviously been through so much in the last two months--more than he should have to deal with, she was sure. But part of her remembered what it was like--all that missing time, all those vague recollections for months afterward...

At least she could tell him the bare bones. There was no mystery to what had happened to  _him_ \--no X-File here. But as she started to tell him about the last eight weeks, she could see in his eyes that same nervousness, that same need to know...

She just hoped the answers he could find for himself weren't as disturbing as the ones she'd discovered about her own abduction...

If they were, she'd almost rather he  _didn't_  remember...

* * * * * * *  
The End

 


End file.
